


Touch The Sky

by gmariam19 (gmariam)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Fluff, Flying, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Schmoop, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25072072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gmariam/pseuds/gmariam19
Summary: The trees clear, and he finds himself at the edge of the water, gazing up at the creature in wonder. Until wonder turns to shock when he realizes it is not a bird, but a man, soaring through the air with the same black and white wings from his dream. They are even tipped with orange. He stares, awe and confusion and longing filling his chest until he almost can't breathe.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 24
Kudos: 81





	Touch The Sky

Touch The Sky

He dreams about flying: of spreading his wings, soaring through azure sky and over forest-green treetops. Black and white feathers, tipped with orange, carry him through clouds and currents, skirting low across the lake and then back up high, almost high enough to touch the stars. It is exhilarating, filling him with a joy he's never felt before, and Finn wakes up with such a sense of longing that he wants to weep with it.

It feels strange: so real, and yet nothing but a dream. What he wouldn't give to spread wings and soar through the air. It is a freedom unlike anything he's experienced yet. He escaped the First Order and they've won the war, and yet…something is missing. Finn can sense it, just outside his grasp, something he wants and needs, but can't put a name to. Something holds him back, and if he could only see past it to reach out and claim it, he knows he will be complete. Truly free of the past, and no longer longing for the future he wants but can't see. He will be able to fly.

With a sigh, Finn rolls out of bed. It's early; the sun hasn't risen above the horizon yet as the world slowly brightens, birdsong quietly wakening the jungles of Ajan Kloss. Maybe he'll go watch the sunrise, try one of the meditations Rey has given him to work on as he learns about his new abilities with the Force. He cleans up, pulls on some clothes and his boots, and heads outside. There are only a few people up and about, a skeleton crew to keep guard overnight; soon the rest of the base will awake to start another day, the peace and quiet of dawn given over to the never-ending work of the Resistance.

Finn lets his feet carry him to a nearby lake a few clicks away. He thinks about his dream as he walks, about the heady sense of flying and the freedom it inspires. Glancing up at the sky, he sees a dark shape soaring through the air, dipping amongst the treetops. As in his dream, the bird soars higher and higher, before plunging downward at dizzying speeds. It seems to be circling the lake, and Finn moves quicker, hoping to see more. It is larger than anything he's seen in the jungles around their base. His heart speeds up with anticipation.

The trees clear, and Finn finds himself at the edge of the water, gazing up at the creature in wonder. Until wonder turns to shock when he realizes it is not a bird of some sort, but a humanoid, a man, soaring through the air with the same black and white wings from his dream. They are even tipped with orange. Finn stares, awe and confusion and longing filling his chest until he almost can't breathe.

And then the man turns, dips low over the water and lets out a whoop of joyful excitement, and Finn knows that voice, knows that face. He staggers back, almost trips and falls in disbelief. How is it possible? Is he still asleep, still dreaming? The man sees him, and Finn thinks he hears the man curse, and only one man curses like that.

It is Poe.

Poe circles above him one more time before landing not far away. He ducks his head and the orange-tipped wings— _just like in his dream_ —seem to curl up behind him and disappear. He's Poe now – Poe Dameron, Resistance pilot and general. Dressed in brown pants and a loose shirt and running his hands through his air-tussled hair in embarrassment. Finn is dumbstruck, and it is Poe who finally speaks first.

"Uh, hi, buddy," he says, and his voice is shaky. "Didn't think I'd see you out here." He pauses, glancing everywhere but at Finn. "Didn't think I'd see anyone out here this early."

Finn stares at him, because that is all he can do in his shock. This is Poe: he has known Poe for over a year, has spent countless hours with him—talking, laughing, fighting. Poe is the best pilot they have, and yet Finn had no idea: Poe Dameron can actually _fly._

"So, uh," Poe keeps talking, as if the silence is unnerving. It is. It all is. And yet it is also _amazing._ Finn needs to somehow find the words for how incredible it is.

"You're probably wondering what's going on," Poe continues. "Don't suppose you'd believe me if I said it was all a dream?"

"It was a dream," Finn says. "I had a dream. Like this. It's why I got up."

"Oh." Poe shuffles his feet, meets Finn's eyes with confusion. "You dreamed about this?"

"I dreamed about flying," Finn tells him. "About wings, your wings, and soaring through the air, tumbling through the clouds."

"Oh," Poe says again. "Well, I don't know about that, but I guess I should explain…well, the rest."

Finn literally shakes his head, his entire body, to bring himself out of the bewildered stupor he feels. He looks around, sees a spot near the water and tilts his head toward it. "I think I need to sit," he says, and feels bad when Poe winces.

"Right," the other man murmurs, and sighs, sounding defeated. Finn reaches out and grabs his hand. He feels Poe flinch, senses his fear.

"Poe," he says, "It's not what you think. I'm…I'm speechless. I'm surprised, confused. But I think it's incredible."

"Really?" Poe asks, his voice skeptical, his body language tense and anxious. "I've got wings. Secret wings. Why aren't you freaking out?"

"Why would I freak out?" Finn asks. "Can I see them again?"

Poe gazes into his eyes, finally nods and steps back. He drops his head as if he doesn't want to see the look on Finn's face, his hands curling into fists. Finn feels a funny tingle in the Force around him, as wings slowly unfurl behind Poe. The black and white feathers are full and strong, the orange tips blazing in the rising sun as if they were kissed by fire. Maybe they were: maybe Poe touched the sun itself.

He's drawn to them, reaches out to touch them, but Poe steps away, brings them back behind him. He finally looks up, sees Finn's face, and a look of astonishment crosses his face as he somehow tucks the wings away again, that funny tingle in the Force tickling at Finn's skin.

"You're really not freaking out," Poe murmurs, as if he can't believe Finn is still there and not running in fear.

"I'm really not," Finn says. "But I still want to know…well, everything. How this is even possible?"

This time Poe looks toward the spot by the water and nods. They sit down side by side on the rocky shore, close but not touching, knees tucked up to their chests as they gaze across the lake and the rising sun slowly illuminating the dark water. Finn can still sense Poe's trepidation, but all Finn feels is excitement, anticipation. Something is there, still out of reach but so close, something he knows will change his life.

"So," says Poe, then shakes his head and laughs, nervous still. "I don't even know where to begin."

"Have you always had them?" Finn asks. "The wings?" He has a hundred questions crashing around in his mind, and he wants to blurt them all out, but tries to start with something simple, something to get Poe started.

"Yes, but no," Poe tells him. "I mean, it's in my blood, but they don't manifest until later in life, until puberty."

"Oh," says Finn. "Wow. Like that's not already hard enough for kids."

"I know, right?" Poe grins crookedly as he stares out across the lake, but then his look turns sad and contemplative. "Anyway. They come from my mom's side. Her people had them, but she…my dad said she was born without them. Impure, they called her. Her family loved her and supported her, but she was ostracized by her people. Eventually, it was too much. She wanted to fly, so she ran away, left her planet and her people behind, and learned to fly."

Finn nods, because he knows this part of the story: Shara Bey, ace pilot, Rebel fighter. A woman grounded by biology who found her place in the skies. "Do you know anything about her people?"

"There were not many of them left," Poe tells him. "By the time my mother was born, there was only a small colony, somewhere out past Dantooine, near the edge of the galaxy in the Unknown Regions. She never said anything else, and never went back, because she said she'd found her real family."

"Your dad," Finn offers, and Poe nods.

"My dad, but also other beings like her, who wanted to fly without wings. My dad said she loved flying through space more than anything and never regretted leaving, not once. She found her place flying first, then in the Rebellion, and later with my dad. And she assumed I would be like her—born without wings, but with the fire to fly."

"Yet you have wings."

"I have wings." Poe takes a deep breath. "Still not sure how it even happened, a quirk of biology, I guess. They emerge during puberty, so when it happened my mom was already gone, and my dad…well, he did his best. He tried so hard, but he was confused, scared. He only knew what little she had told him. We needed my mom, but we were on our own."

"You didn't talk to anyone about it?"

Poe turns to look at him, rests his chin on his knees. "We saw a doctor on Yavin IV once, but he didn't know what it was, what to do. We had no way to find my mother's family, we didn't even know where she was from, what they were called. And I showed my best friend, but after a while, his parents wouldn't let him see me. They thought he was making up stories and that I was a bad influence. I lost several friends, actually. So, we kept it a secret. Yavin IV is a good place, but I didn't want to stand out, lose what I already had."

"Seriously?" Finn asks, teasing. "You didn't want to be the center of attention?"

"Not when I was twelve years old, confused as hell, and missing my mom," Poe tells him. "I had to figure it all out on my own. I bottled up the fear and resentment like I thought I should, only it didn't work. I started acting out, fighting, talking back to my dad. And finally, I did what my mom did: I ran away."

Finn has also heard this part of the story before, the wild years of Poe's youth, his time flying for the Spice Runners on Kijimi. Poe had told him so much, from the death of his mother to the fights with his dad, and yet he had left out the most important part of it all.

"Have you kept it secret all these years?" Finn asks after a moment, wondering how in the world someone like Poe could hold back a part of himself for so long. Finn had suffocated under the First Order, forced to deny his own humanity, his individuality, his Force sensitivity. Even living free in the New Republic, he wonders how he could have kept such secrets.

"It wasn't ever something I wanted to share," Poe tells him with a shrug. "Every so often, I'll fly on my own, especially back on Yavin IV." He starts throwing rocks into the lake. "But a part of me is still afraid I'll lose the people who know, like I lost my friends. Or that I might be kicked out, made to feel different—impure—like my mom. And a part of me wants to keep this piece of her all to myself. I guess I don't want to share her _,_ if that makes sense."

Finn watches the rocks, each once rippling out across the water. He watches Poe watching the rocks, can see his friend's fear and sadness played clearly across his face: now that Finn knows, is he going to leave too? Is he going to treat Poe differently? There could be nothing further from the truth, and somehow Finn has to convince him of that.

"It makes sense," Finn tells him quietly. "And it's still incredible, so I'm not going anywhere."

"You're serious?" Poe's voice cracks as he turns to Finn, eyes wide and hopeful. "Because I'd understand if you did. I'm sorry I kept it a secret, but maybe now that you know… you won't mind your co-general flying off every now and then?"

"I'm used to it," Finn tells him with a grin. "Only in an X-wing, not with feathers." Poe grins back, and another question suddenly occurs to Finn. "Was this your first time flying here, on Ajan Kloss?" Poe nods, and Finn is sad, that Poe has gone so long without his wings. "What made you want to fly today? Here at the lake?"

Poe seems to consider what to say, or maybe how much. "When you talked about finding your home planet the other day," he finally answers. "It made me think about my mother, and her home. And maybe one day, once things have settled down, I might try to find her people. To see if there are others out there, like me." He is so quiet by the end it is like he is talking to himself, thinking out loud. Finn feels a nudge in the Force, a connection that wasn't there before.

"We can go together," he says, earning another look of surprise from Poe. "Find our homes, our families. Wherever they are, we will find them."

Poe swallows thickly, wipes at his eye before smiling. "I've already found my family, right here," he says. "But I'd really like that, to see if there are others, to find where we came from."

Finn takes a deep breath. "Can I see them again?" Something else is niggling at the back of his mind, something important. Poe seems reluctant, though, so Finn reaches out, touches his knee. "I promise, nothing is going to change."

Poe slowly nods, squeezing Finn's hand as if he is nervous. There's that tingle in the Force again, and the glorious wings unfold behind him. Finn idly wonders about Poe's shirt and whether there is a big hole in it now. Sitting down, the wings tower over Poe, until he brings them closer around him, as if sheltering behind them, protecting himself from the world. Finn doesn't like seeing Poe Dameron hide.

Finn moves nearer, and this time when he reaches out to touch them, Poe does not pull back. But he is still so apprehensive that Finn's heart aches to see such fear. He lets his hand run gently over the soft feathers until he comes to the orange flames at the ends, lets them fall through his fingertips. Poe's mouth is hanging open slightly—Finn's not quite sure why—and Finn can't help but grin.

"It's like BB-8 picked them out for you," he says, and after a moment of shocked silence, Poe bursts into laughter, his wings shaking behind him.

"Leia said the same thing once," Poe tells him when he stops laughing. A sad smile settles on his face. "She was the only person here who knew."

"Did you tell her?" Finn asks, curious.

"Not exactly," Poe replies. "She said she could tell I had a secret, and finally pulled it out of me."

"Of course she knew," Finn murmurs. He strokes the other wing, and Poe closes his eyes, offers a little hum of what sounds like pleasure. Finn presses harder, feels something click deep within, and Poe whispers his name as he pulls them back out of reach, though he does not hide them.

"It's the Force," Finn breathes. "That's how you use them—why no one can see them."

"Yes," Poe says, his voice shaky. "That's what Leia said, when I first showed her. I'd always kind of suspected, but there was never any way to know for sure. Like I said, I was on my own." His face is flushed, his wings still back, like a loth-cat might pull its ears back when it feels defensive. Finn frowns.

"Are you okay?" he asks. "Does it hurt, when I touch them?"

"Uh, no," says Poe, ducking his head, and is he blushing? "No, it doesn't hurt. Not at all. Quite the opposite, actually. I should probably—" Finn feels the Force move around him as Poe prepares to draw them in.

"No," he says, reaching for Poe's wrist. He moves closer, placing his other hand on Poe's face, letting his fingers trail across the other man's jaw. He looks up at Poe's wings, then back into wide brown eyes. "They're amazing," he says, his voice quiet and raw. " _You're_ amazing."

Poe is staring at his lips. "Finn, I don't think—"

Finn kisses him, slow and gentle at first, giving Poe a chance to stop if this is not what he wants. Finn's never been quite sure, after all. Sometimes he thinks yes, Poe wants this: the looks, the touches, the teasing and flirting. Other times Finn thinks they will only ever be friends, with so much unspoken between them. Finn has wanted more since before they won the war, but has always been too scared to say anything, to lose what they do have. Now is the time, his last chance, in case Poe pulls away from their friendship after revealing his secret.

Poe seems surprised for the briefest minute, before he closes his eyes and kisses Finn back, long and hard, his arms coming around Finn's back to pull him closer. Someone moans quietly, maybe both of them, and they are quickly kissing with almost frantic need and pent-up desire, until a gust of wind almost knocks them over: Poe's wings, flapping behind him, almost with a mind of their own. They stop and look up and are suddenly breathless and laughing, clinging to one another in their joy.

"Did you mean to do that?" Poe finally asks, and this time he does bring his wings in, and he is Poe again, as everyone knows him. As Finn loves him. "Just now. Or was it—"

"The wings?" Finn finishes. "No, I meant to do it. It finally seemed like the right time."

"Finally?" Poe asks, taking Finn's hand. "Does that mean—"

"I've been thinking about it for a while," Finn admits. "And I don't want you to run away again, now that I know. Please don't be scared."

"I am, a little," he admits. "But I won't run away, not if you mean it. I've been thinking about it, too. For a long time, but…" He shrugs, offers a rueful smile. "Didn't think you were, and didn't want to take the chance."

"Me neither," Finn tells him. He remembers his dream, as his thoughts start to come together. "But I think the Force drew me here today, both of us, so we could finally figure it out." He squeezes Poe's hand. "So you can finally be yourself."

Poe seems to be thinking about it. "I don't want anyone else to know," he says. "Not even Rey."

"I understand," Finn tells him. "Although she might sense it, like I did. Every time you bring them out, I can feel it. Through the Force."

Poe smiles and unfurls them again, then brings them as close as he can to surround them, like a cocoon of sleek feathers, soft and warm and ringing with the Force. Finn reaches out once more and watches Poe's face as he strokes the orange tips; he's pretty sure Poe shivers, bites his lip, and Finn thinks it might be the most beautiful sight he's seen yet. He leans forward to kiss Poe, still stroking his left wing, and Poe positively moans into his mouth, which does all kinds of things to Finn.

"This is it," Finn murmurs against Poe's lips, sitting back in wonder as the realization hits. "This is what's been missing, what I've been dreaming about."

"Orange wings?" Poe offers with amusement.

"You," Finn breathes. "I knew the Force brought me to you, and to Rey, but I didn't know why. Now Rey is teaching me about the Jedi, and you…" He knows the answer, but doesn't know how to say it. "You are everything else, everyone other reason why I'm here. You are what I've been missing."

Something settles deep inside him, a feeling of rightness, of being complete, his life's path more certain than ever. It vibrates in the Force around them, and he holds Poe's hand against his heart, wishing the other man could sense it too. Poe looks down at their entwined hands, before looking up with wonder in his eyes. Maybe he does.

"Fly with me," he says, and Finn inhales sharply in surprise.

"What?"

"Come up with me, right now," Poe says again, and he stands, holding out his hand for Finn. He takes it, of course he does, his heart already beating faster. Poe pulls him close, hands around Finn's waist, and Finn wraps his arms around Poe's neck. Feathered wings spread out and beat once, twice, before they lift off the ground, rising seamlessly, breathlessly up into the air.

It is a slow, controlled ascent over the lake, higher than Finn could imagine. He is not scared, but completely at peace, trusting in Poe, sharing in his joy. Together they fly higher, the sun rising below them on the horizon, setting the water on fire. Finally, Poe stops, hovers for a moment—Finn can feel the effort it takes to remain aloft—and they share a kiss, alone among the clouds. It is short, but intense, and perfect in every way.

And then Poe is grinning, and rushing back toward the ground, where they land in a tangled tumble of limbs and wings, feathers and lips and laughter and kisses. This was his dream, and Finn knows that what he's longed for is now his future. Together, he and Poe will find their home; together, they will touch the sky.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired in part by a winged Poe, done by the wonderful clakearts, here:  
> https://gmariam19.tumblr.com/post/622529316665901056/omg-this-is-perfect-i-was-thinking-about-wings  
> I had actually been thinking about how I hadn't seen any Star Wars wingfics, and I woke up the next day and the story was just there, background and all. I even made a moodboard for it here:  
> https://gmariam19.tumblr.com/post/622666509349797889/i-made-my-first-mood-board-and-im-almost-done  
> I hope you enjoyed this - let a girl know since it's a bit off the beaten track? Thank you for reading!


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